Overall, I thought that my classmates did an amazing job with their Ted Talks. As someone who has struggled in the past with public speaking, I know that preparation is key when presenting a speech. While watching my peer’s presentations, it was clear that they all put in so much preparation and effort. Being able to record the speech was also nice, in my opinion, because it allowed me to not worry about an audience in front of me.

I learned many things by watching my classmates’ Ted Talks. When I viewed Lexi’s Ted Talk I gained valuable insight as to how other children have been dealing with the pandemic. In my opinion, it’s always interesting to see various perspectives from people living through the same event. While I knew that Covid has had extreme effects on children’s mental health, it was very beneficial to have the statistics played in front of me. Though I’m not a “math” person, being given actual numbers allows me and other readers to put things into perspective.

When I watched Kailey’s Ted Talk, I learned about how companies use advertising to target younger women and girls. In particular, Kailey’s topic really “hit home” for me. As a young girl in middle school and even part of high school, I can remember feeling pressure to fit into the stereotypical body type: skinny. Seeing all the advertisements for brands like Victoria’s Secret and even American Eagle, I remember not seeing much diversity in the body types that they portrayed. It’s a shame that these companies push this body type over others. What I learned was that Brandy Melville used one size fits all for many of their products. Learning this helped me to understand the way that some companies use their platforms to send messages to young girls, especially when it comes to their bodies. Therefore, by choosing to only produce one size, Brandy Melville is essentially saying that their target consumers are this size and not others.

When it comes to rhetoric, I gained knowledge on how to use it in my civic life to engage with issues similar to those presented by my peers. For example, Lexi used a conversational tone that helped to keep the listener attentive, while not feeling like she was being too formal.